Nobody, not even Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig, has ever gotten an unanimous vote.

Lou Gehrig got votes for the Hall of Fame while he was still active. I'm not sure if the first Hall of Fame ballot required players to be retired. Obviously they didn't have to be retired for five years because Babe Ruth had not been and he was part of the first class. There were a lot more worthy candidates in those days because they were starting from scratch.

Gehrig was elected the year he played his last game after ALS forced him into retirement. The details of the special election were never announced, and it's irrelevant if it was or wasn't unanimous. For all I know, based upon what I read when I was growing up, t could have been by acclamation, like that obscure method of choosing the pope where the cardinals shout out a name instead of taking a vote.

If you threw the Hall of Fame entirely over to the Veterans Committee, you might see unanimous votes. If you had some other mass voting block, such as former major league players voting, I don't think you would see a unanimous vote for anyone. I don't see how you could have current players voting for the Hall of Fame because as a group, they are notoriously unknowledgeable about baseball history. I heard Ernie Banks tell Jack Brickhouse on WGN long ago that he had never heard of Babe Ruth until he made it to the majors.

Turning the voting over to the fans wouldn't result in any unanimous votes, and it wouldn't be an improvement over the writers.

Costas had some interesting reasoning on McGwire not getting in, ever, versus Bonds and Clemens. McGwire started putting up Babe Ruth/Ted Williams numbers after age 31 after the strike, while Bonds was already a great player before he started experimenting with PEDs.

That would be a great class. No need to worry about Maddux. I am wondering why people thought Glavine wouldn't be a lock. He has 305 wins, a 3.54 career ERA, 2 Cy Young Awards, four other top-3 Cy Young finishes (9th all-time in CY shares), 10x All-Star, and throw in a WS MVP award.

Yeah, I always assumed Glavine would be a first ballot choice after he retired, but because of steroids, I have no idea what writers think these days.